Yasaka Masamune

My favorite racket. If you see Satoshi Aida chopping with inverted rubber and think this bat will magically give you this ability, you will be in for a shock. Aida is not human, but with the right rubber setup, you might be able to get there.

I play this racket currently with Butterfly Tenergy 03 (max) on forehand and Yinhe Apollo 5 (2.1) on backhand, and although I’ll never come close to Aida’s level of skill, I feel I have a style that somehow reflects his game, mixing up defensive chops and explosive attacks to always keep the opponent guessing.

Chopping with this bat with the slow Apollo rubber is easy; with Rakza 7 like Aida has, it is next to impossible. The bat is fast, but it has amazing feeling. You can hit winners by sheer speed alone. Control is great. You can play a very solid all-around game with this racket.

My only con is the racket handle (I’m using flared) can get a bit slippery when it’s very warm/humid. I only noticed this recently in the summer, and it fell out of my hand when I was transitioning from a serve.

My honest review: I have experienced DEF to OFF++ blades, and I must say this is quite a fast blade even though Satoshi Aida uses it to chop (all-rounder who plays beautifully, mixing chopping and looping with both sides, forehand and backhand; he is incredible IMO).

Why is he incredible? Simply because chopping with this blade is not easy. Once again, it is considered fast, and the ball easily pops away (either going far away from the table or too high), but Aida can do it.

So basically, I made several changes on this Masamune, specifically on its backhand: • FH: Victas V20 Double Extra • BH: Victas Spectol S1 1.6mm, Butterfly Feint Long III 0.5mm, Butterfly Feint Soft 1.1mm, 729 Dr. Evil, and Yinhe Neptune 0.7mm.

My conclusion on these rubbers then: this blade needs a soft backhand rubber to chop (if you like to chop). Butterfly Feint Long III 0.5 is the nicest among them.

Hope this helps you guys. The FH is so nice there is no other word to describe this blade. You can go fast when you need fast looping, but you can also go slow when you go for soft touches near the net. It obeys you.

I am a player who has trained for 4 years and enjoys testing some equipment. I like the style in which Satoshi Aida plays. In Ukraine, we have Nikolay Telnoy playing inverted rubber defensive play, but there is much less forehand attack compared to Aida. Telnoy uses an oversized blade, which I don’t like, so I can’t just copy his equipment and train with it.

I was trying to do this with Aida equipment. But my expectations from this Yasake blade were wrong. I expected less vibration from this thickness, but for me, those vibrations are good news; I also expected speed in the range from all to off- but it’s rather off- to off or even the beginning of off+.

I played in the past with a Yinhe Venus V-12 with a hinoki outer layer and it was good with hard rubbers, but this blade is too speedy for me, especially with hard rubber. I still wait for Rakza Z now, but I tested it with Rising Dragon on BH and for me, it’s much harder to use it compared with DHS Hurricane 3 38 with booster, even for chop.

In my opinion, it’s not a good blade for beginners, especially for beginner defenders. My current combination is Tibhar Defense Plus, and it is much more stable and easy to use with hard rubber, as Yinhe Big Dipper spin and gives more control on chop, but also with hard rubber, it allows attacking with almost the same speed as this Yasake Masamune (on a hard strike, it really near the old allwood off+ blade but slower than most carbon blades). BTW, ST handle here is one of the best I tested (it is thick enough for me).

I will test it with a more early combination with Aida used, mb it will fit better for a non-pro player using this style.